Policy Design, Analysis, and Evaluation Commons^™

Financial Openness And Growth: 2000-2010, Amy Kennedy

Pepperdine Policy Review

In light of the recent financial crisis and economic downturn, policymakers are looking at other options to raise tax revenue. One such option proposed is a financial transaction tax which would tax various cross-border transactions such as banking or securities transactions. Yet, economic growth is arguably the better option for increasing revenue. One might further argue that a tax will lead to less revenue through reduced growth resulting from investors investing money in other tax free arenas. Therefore, this study looks at the relationship between financial openness and annual real GDP per capita growth to ascertain the effect of financial …

A Global Blasphemy Law: Protecting Believers At The Expense Of Free Speech, Kiley Widelitz

Pepperdine Policy Review

Since 1999, the Organization for Islamic Cooperation has annually introduced a resolution to the United Nations Human Rights Council to create an international blasphemy law. The United Nations is currently debating whether to accept a resolution that criminalizes blasphemy. In order to assess whether the United Nations should enact such a law, this article examines the laws of the United States in comparison to three countries that enforce their blasphemy laws: Indonesia, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia. This article concludes that the United Nations should follow the way of the United States and forgo any restriction on blasphemy, as blasphemy laws …

Practicum Projects, Michael P. Johnson

Public Policy and Public Affairs Faculty Publication Series

Executive Summary LIFT-Boston, a local non-profit organization, entered into a collaborative partnership in September 2012 with McCormack Graduate School Public Policy Ph.D. students and faculty to develop and execute a research project. The goals of this endeavor were to assist LIFT-Boston in understanding the outcomes associated with its services and enable the organization to further pursue service goals. The primary research questions respond to the organization’s most fundamental questions. These include how the organization’s unique service model impacts clients across several objective and subjective dimensions of well-being. Secondary questions focus on how these impacts may translate into increases or decreases …

Crime Drop Ii – Young People Are Leading The Newest Violent Crime Decline, Jeffrey A. Butts

Publications and Research

FBI crime data show that young people contributed a large share to the declining rate of violent crime in the United States. By 2011, the youth violent crime rate had dropped 60 percent since its peak in 1994. The databit shows the rate of violent crime between 1994-2004 and 2006-2011 for youth under age 18, 18-24, and 25 and older.

Beyond High Hopes And Unmet Expectations: Judicial Selection Reforms In The States, Rebecca D. Gill

Political Science Faculty Research

The scholarly debate about how to select state judges has been ongoing for decades; the public debate on the issue spans more than a century. Proponents on each side seem confident that their preferred method of judicial selection is the best. Reformers argued that, “judicial elections deserve the limelight in the variety show of threats to judicial independence.” Defenders of judicial elections have countered that judicial reformers are “waging war on democratic processes and the rights of citizens to maintain control over government.” The empirical evidence to date, however, has largely resulted in a draw. The more we learn about …

Agency Decision-Making For Climate Change: Cost-Benefit Analysis, The Precautionary Principle, And The Bounds Of Rationality, Laura Carr

Pomona Senior Theses

Climate change tests the limits of human understanding of complexity and uncertainty. It challenges assumptions about our presumed power of control over this planet. This paper examines the theory of how governmental executive branch agencies make regulation decisions about climate change using the decision-making methodologies of cost-benefit analysis and the precautionary principle, and as influenced by perceptions of the bounds of human rationality and ability to deal with risk and uncertainty.

The Forgotten Half Of Food System Reform: Using Food And Agricultural Law To Foster Healthy Food Production, Emily Broad Leib

Journal of Food Law & Policy

America is facing widespread problems with its food system, including environmental harms due to externalities from industrial farms; the increasing amount of "food _miles" traveled by the products that make up our daily meals; and the growing size and complexity of recent outbreaks of foodborne illnesses. Indeed, the entire system that covers the life cycle of food, through production, processing, distribution, consumption, and food waste management, is in crisis. One of the most disturbing of these well-documented problems with the industrial food system is the increase in rates of obesity and diet-related illnesses. Obesity rates in the U.S. have more …

The U.S. Department Of Agriculture As A Public Health Agency? A "Health In All Policies" Case Study, Lindsay F. Wiley

Journal of Food Law & Policy

The "war on obesity" is now well into its second decade. What began as an effort to encourage medical doctors to screen and treat patients whose weight put them at risk for health problems has transformed into a much broader public health campaign to address the root causes of obesity. A growing number of state, territorial and local health departments are currently exploring new ways to promote healthy eating and physical activity. At the federal level, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has made "nutrition, physical activity and obesity" a top priority.

Consumer Satisfaction With Aging & Disability Resource Connection (Adrc) Services: Round 2, Diana L. White, Sheryl Elliott

Institute on Aging Publications

Aging and Disabilities Resource Centers (ADRC) are a program of the Administration for Community Living (ACL), the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS), and the Veterans Health Administration. They serve as a single entry point into the long-term services and supports systems for older adults and those with disabilities. The goal is to provide a coordinated system of information and access to those seeking long-term services and support, thereby minimizing confusion, enhancing individual choice, and supporting informed decision-making.

Financing Public Solar Projects: California Public Jurisdictions' Experiences In Acquiring And Financing Solar Photovoltaic Installations, Dana M.C. Hoffman

Master's Theses

More efficient technologies, state laws as well as environmental, social, and political pressures have all contributed to placing solar acquisition on the agenda for California’s public entities over the last half decade. But a key question for these frequently cash-strapped jurisdictions is how to utilize public dollars and lands, and how to leverage incentives to obtain solar PVs. As an alternative to outright purchase, a promising financing option made available to jurisdictions in recent years is ownership by a third party, usually the solar company, including various forms of Power Purchase Agreements (PPA’s) and leasing. Due in part to state …

British Policy Formulation For The Eu, Bryce Comstock

Claremont-UC Undergraduate Research Conference on the European Union

No abstract provided.

Collaboration: The Effects Of Joint Agency Training For Both National Guard And Department Of Homeland Security, Benjamin J. Rogers

Purdue Polytechnic Directed Projects

Rogers, Benjamin J. M.S., Purdue University, May 2013. Collaboration: The Effects of

Joint Agency Training for Both National Guard and Department of Homeland Security.

Major Professor: Daniel Lybrook.

Using subject matter experts and responders in the field of incident response, this study

was designed to ascertain whether there is a need for more collaborative training among

both National Guard responders and Department of Homeland Security responders. It

did this by answering the key questions of:

1. What areas within training can be collaborative?

2. What are the effects of joint training on first responders?

3. What training processes can be …

Strategies For Minimizing The Impact Of Reductions In Government Funding On The Susquehanna County Historical Society And Free Library Association, Brenda Ann Syle

MPA Capstone Projects 2006 - 2015

The amount o funding that the Susquehanna County Historical Society and Free Library Association receives from the State of Pennsylvania has declined by 32% since 2009. The 2010 reduction in funding led to an immediate reduction in services and increased focus on fundraising. This is a significant problem for the Library because the lack of financial stability is affecting their ability to achieve mission-related goals. To assist the Susquehanna County Historical Society and Free Library Association with this problem, I distributed a survey to 485 public library directors in Pennsylvania in order to determine what strategies other public library directors …

Llaguepulli Y La Resistencia Mapuche Dentro Del Espacio Del Indio Permitido, Marlen Rosas

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

My research aims to analyze the current relationship of the Mapuche movement to the political space allowed to them by the neoliberal Chilean state. This space, which authors Charles R. Hale and Rosamel Milláman call the space of the “indio permitido,” or permitted Indian, is a product of the rhetoric of multiculturalism created by various neoliberal Latin American states with the goal of pacifying their respective indigenous populations by integrating them to the dominant economic, political, and social systems. In Chile, the National Corporation of Indigenous Development, or CONADI, is the primary organism of the state through which the …

The Art Of Controlling A Meteorological Event: Responsibility Of The Government And Perspectives Of The People Regarding Flooding In The City Of Buenos Aires, Jennifer Giffels

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

The city of Buenos Aires bears a long history of flooding, notable throughout the twentieth century as the city grew and developed into the urban capital it is today. Although the floods are provoked by natural causes such as the location of the city on flat and low land, as well as the obvious meteorological causes of weather patterns and heavy rains, there are many other aggravating circumstances caused by humans and that consequently can be controlled by humans. With the most recent tragic floods at the beginning of April 2013 in the city of Buenos Aires, the questions and …

A Developing Say Against Aids, Joanna Rydzefski

Annual Undergraduate Conference on Health and Society

Lack of access to medicines is a hurdle for many countries, especially developing nations, in their fight against serious health problems. The World Trade Organization (WTO) has frequently been scrutinized regarding its impact on access to essential medicines after its Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) created a framework for the protection of physical and intellectual goods. The main goal of TRIPS is to promote scientific development through patents, but the repercussions of this monopoly over drug production sparked opposition from developing nations, specifically Brazil and South Africa (Dounis 2011, 3). This paper aims to explore how …

Ethical Issues In The Drug Approval Process, Meghan Mcinnis

Annual Undergraduate Conference on Health and Society

The Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) drug approval process carries great significance for both pharmaceutical companies and for patients. In recent decades, there has been a shift towards expedited approval so that drugs, especially those for terminally ill patients, can be brought to market faster. However, the FDA still has the responsibility of protecting patients from harm. The case studies of two drugs, Vioxx and Avastin, highlight several of the ethical and practical issues of the drug approval process, including the nature of clinical trial research, the risk-benefit analysis of new treatments, the growth of Contract Research Organizations (CROs) and …

“Listen Carefully:” A Study Of Ageist Stereotypes And Undergraduates’ Desire To Work With Elders, Genevieve Ilg

Annual Undergraduate Conference on Health and Society

“Listen Carefully:” A Study of Ageist Stereotypes and Undergraduates’ Desire to Work with Elders identifies and assesses how prior experience with elders and ageist stereotypes informs the degree to which undergraduates are inclined (or disinclined) to consider geriatrics as a potential career. Current literature indicates a lack of interest among social workers and other allied-health professionals in working with this demographic. Here, the “generation gap” not only pertains to the differences between younger people and their elders, but to the gap between the aging population’s increasing demand of need and how many individuals plan to serve the elderly. For this …

Combating The Stigmatization Of Leprosy: How The First Decade Of The Star’S Publication Made The Case For Romantic Relationships And The Preservation Of Domestic Life In The Carville Leprosarium, Gabriela Reed

Annual Undergraduate Conference on Health and Society

The stigmatization of leprosy has long been acknowledged as one of the primary obstacles to not only effectively treating leprous patients on a physical level, but also achieving their integration and acceptance into society. The Carville Leprosarium, founded as the Louisiana Leper Home in 1894, and the intense ostracism that it institutionalized, demonstrate one of the most influential expressions of this stigma. However, Carville residents were not passive in accepting their fate. The Star, a magazine founded by Stanley Stein and subsequently published in conjunction with his fellow residents, worked to combat such stigma. Building on the work of …

Terrains Of Terror And Modern Apparatuses Of Destruction: Organ Transplantation, Markets, And The Commoditized Kidney, Ayan Kassim

Annual Undergraduate Conference on Health and Society

Recent innovations in biomedicine and medical technologies within the last 40 years have altered understandings of the body and its parts; burgeoning global markets in organs is symptomatic of this. Although procurement policies by most nations solicit organs through donation only, lengthy wait lists have prompted the fiscally privileged sick to pursue other means of survival. In light of the current global realities of kidney trafficking in particular, this paper considers the following questions: How and why has the kidney become a commodity? In what historical moment did a kidney market emerge? What and who are the key actors in …